The pledge has been eagerly awaited as the country is the world’s largest carbon emitter.

China said it would increase the share of non-fossil fuels as part of its primary energy consumption to about 20% by 2030, and peak emissions by around the same point, though it would “work hard” to do so earlier.

The figures are contained in a document submitted to the United Nations ahead of the next round of UN climate talks in Paris. All countries are expected to submit their national pledges to reduce carbon emissions beyond 2020, also known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC).

China plans to increase its installed capacity of wind power to 200GW and solar power to around 100 gigawatts (GW), up from 95.81GW and 28GW today, respectively. It will also increase its use of natural gas which is expected to make up more than 10% of its primary energy consumption by 2020.

According to estimates by E3G, a European-based environmental thinktank, China’s plan will see it install as much low-carbon energy as the entire US electricity system capacity to date. […] [Source]

In a new element beyond the U.S.-China deal, Beijing said it would cut its CO2 emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 60-65 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. That would deepen a 40-45 percent cut already set by Beijing for 2020.

[…] China accounts for a quarter of world greenhouse gases and its plan, submitted to the United Nations on Tuesday, means governments accounting for more than half the global total have now outlined goals for climate action beyond 2020.

About 40 countries emitting just over 30 percent of world emissions have previously submitted their plans, including the United States and the European Union. National plans will be the building blocks of a Paris accord.

[…] “The United States and China can no longer use inaction by the other as an excuse for ignoring the risks we all face from climate change. Both countries are acting,” said Bob Perciasepe, president of the U.S. Center for Climate and Energy Solutions think-tank. [Source]

Commenting on the statement, Li Shuo, climate analyst for Greenpeace China, said for success in Paris, all players – including China and the EU – needed to up their game.

“Today’s pledge must be seen as only the starting point for much more ambitious actions.

“It does not fully reflect the significant energy transition that is already taking place in China.

“Given the dramatic fall in coal consumption, robust renewable energy uptake, and the urgent need to address air pollution, we believe the country can go well beyond what it has proposed today.”

[…] Samantha Smith, global climate leader at WWF, said China was the first major developing country emitter to set a total emissions peak target.

[…] “We emphasise the importance of the fact that China has made commitments beyond its responsibility as a developing country. But we hope that China will continue to find ways to reduce its emissions, which will in turn drive global markets for renewable energy and energy efficiency.” [Source]

The data – which comes months before crucial climate talks in Paris – means China has cut emissions during the first four months of the year by roughly the same amount as the total carbon emissions of the United Kingdom over the same period.

What’s clearer is that generators using dirty coal will be thrown to the market lions. That almost surely will force down coal-power tariffs. For instance, tariffs in southern Guangdong province have slumped less than 10% since 2011, according to data from Credit Suisse’s Dave Dai, while coal prices globally have halved.

[…] That’s bad news for coal-fired plants, which generate three-quarters of China’s electricity and already bear the brunt of the industrial downturn.Total electricityproduction in the first four months of 2015 was up just 0.2% from the same period in 2014, one of the lowest readings in the past five years. On top of that, coal-fired capacity utilization last year fell to its lowest level in 38 years, says Mr. Dai.

If Beijing is serious about reform, it could shutter unneeded coal-generation capacity. In that scenario, companies that operate small plants and suffer higher costs, such as Huaneng Power International, will get hit. […] [Source]

Hitting that coal target sounds like unambiguously great news for the warming atmosphere and acidifying oceans. But China’s natural gas sources might not be as CO2-reducing as is often assumed. One possible domestic source of natural gas, synthetic natural gas (SNG), would reduce visible air pollution—the grey, soupy skies that are a source of popular outrage and, potentially, a threat to Communist Party stability. But SNG would likely spew out vastly more CO2 than coal-burning does.

This shift could also come with other new costs. Both SNG and expansion of China’s shale industry could perilously strain water resources. China’s dam-building bonanza has hidden risks, too. Reservoirs created by hyrdoelectric dams have been linked to upticks in seismic activity, including the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, which killed 80,000 people. As China embraces new sources of power, a slew of priorities—diplomatic, political, environmental, social, economic—will finally start emerging from the coal-burning haze. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/co2-emissions-fall-as-china-cuts-coal/feed/0China Soon to Be Top Carbon Emitter Since 1990http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/04/china-surpass-u-s-top-cause-global-warming/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/04/china-surpass-u-s-top-cause-global-warming/#commentsTue, 14 Apr 2015 03:42:04 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182839China will soon surpass the U.S. as the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gas, according to two new studies. Alister Doyle at Reuters reports:

China is poised to overtake the United States as the main cause of man-made global warming since 1990, the benchmark year for U.N.-led action, in a historic shift that may raise pressure on Beijing to act.

China’s cumulative greenhouse gas emissions since 1990, when governments were becoming aware of climate change, will outstrip those of the United States in 2015 or 2016, according to separate estimates by experts in Norway and the United States.

[…] “A few years ago China’s per capita emissions were low, its historical responsibility was low. That’s changing fast,” said Glen Peters of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo (CICERO), who says China will overtake the United States this year. [Source]

Total carbon emissions in the world’s second-biggest economy dropped 2 percent in 2014 compared with the previous year, the first drop since 2001, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimate based on preliminary energy demand data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

[…] “This gives me even more hope that humankind will be able to work together to combat climate change, the most important threat facing us today,” [International Energy Agency chief economist Fatih] Birol said in the IEA statement.

The China results show that the country’s battle to rein in pollution is having a tangible effect. The world’s biggest carbon emitter, has poured money into clean energy sources such as solar, wind and hydro developments, while cutting its dependence on coal.

China led in renewables last year with investments of $89.5 billion, accounting for almost one out of every three dollars spent on clean energy in the world, according to BNEF figures released in January. [Source]

The demonstration began with thousands of people staging a peaceful sit-in outside city government offices at about 8am. Many wore surgical masks and stickers denouncing the plant.

Police dispersed the crowd at around 10am, sending the protesters into the streets, where the numbers quickly swelled to around 10,000 before noon.

[…] The city is home to the Xinfengjiang Reservoir, a major source of water for Hong Kong, and already has one coal-fired plant supplying electricity.

Shenzhen Energy is spending 8 billion yuan (HK$10.12 billion) to build the new plant, which will generate 11 billion kWh annually. The Shenzhen government is the major shareholder in Shenzhen Energy. [Source]

With pollution identified as a major source of unrest, China’s ruling Communist Party has promised to tackle a host of environmental problems brought about by more than three decades of breakneck economic growth, an environment ministry think tank said on Thursday.

The Institute of Environmental Planning, run by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said China’s economy has now “basically said goodbye” to scarcity and the state was now having to meet rising public demand for a cleaner environment.

“There is a huge gap between how fast the environment is being improved and the how fast the public is demanding it to be improved, and environmental problems could easily become a tipping point that leads to social risks,” the institute said in a report published by the official China Environmental News.

[…T]he institute said China’s war on pollution was likely to become easier as a result of structural changes in the economy, with traditional heavy industrial output now peaking, though there could be unforeseen environmental consequences stemming from the country’s attempts to diversify into new industries. [Source]

Wu and a group of colleagues founded Goldwind in 1998, as a successor company to Xinjiang Wind Energy Company. The goal was “establishing Xinjiang as the birthplace of China’s domestic wind energy industry.” Fast-forward to 2013, and Wu’s Goldwind was China’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines and the world’s second largest, with a 10 percent global market share that year. It had installed more than 14,000 turbines, on every continent except Antarctica, capable of producing 19,000 MW of electricity, more than the entire installed generating capacity of Switzerland.

How did Goldwind grow so big so fast in an industry where China had no expertise only twenty-five years earlier? The company’s success reflects a combination of traits often seen in China’s best companies: strong engineering skills, an ability both to acquire technology from other companies and to develop its own technology, and political savvy in its industry. That the wind industry is enjoying a period of rapid growth, both in China and globally, has provided a critical boost. So has the backing of Chinese national policies. [The following section of the book takes] a closer look at the role each of these factors has played in Goldwind’s success. [Source]

China’s struggle with black lung is likely to outlast its addiction to coal. China last month made a commitment to start reducing its annual volume of coal usage by 2030. That turning point—called “peak coal”—could occur years before that as this country cleans up its degraded environment.

China’s diagnoses of pneumoconiosis have risen sevenfold from 2005 to 2013 to about 750,000, at an average pace of 35% annually, according to official data.

That is likely to be an underestimate. Watchdog groups say 90% of China’s coal miners lack labor contracts and so don’t qualify for inclusion in official health surveys. That would indicate that black-lung sufferers number closer to six million, said Wang Keqin, founder of Love Save Pneumoconiosis. Hong Kong-based watchdog China Labour Bulletin agrees with the estimate.

[…] Mr. Ruan knew about black lung before he developed symptoms. A 30-year-old cousin, Zuo Shunyou, started work at the Shiqiao coal mine two years before Mr. Ruan. In 2010, after recurring fevers and breathing trouble, Mr. Zuo sought help.Doctors at Guiyang Pulmonary Hospital suspected black lung from the tissue scarring found in an X-ray scan. But they wrote a question mark on his diagnosis because further tests were needed; Mr. Zuo said he didn’t have the 13,000 yuan for the additional tests, and, he said, the mine’s owners wouldn’t pay. Mr. Ruan calls coal mining “the hardest job.” At Shiqiao, coaling went around the clock in three shifts, seven days a week. He and his colleagues dug up more than 400 tons of coal a day. […] [Source]

What matters is how fast and how comprehensively China can become independent of coal. Even Germany, which sees itself as a leader of the green energy revolution, is making this transition only slowly.

At present, China produces about 75 percent of its electricity from coal. In Germany, the figure is 44 percent. China faces the bigger technical challenge, since its total energy demand is greater and still growing fast – its demand for electricity is expected to grow by over 70 percent by 2035.

It’s an open question as to whether China can break the link between economic growth and consumption of coal – and thus carbon dioxide emissions.

[…] But Li Shuo, a climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia, is optimistic that this is possible. “In the first three quarters of 2014, China experienced a decline in coal consumption by 1-2 percent, while economic growth was still at around 7 percent,” Li told Deutsche Welle. For the first time, coal consumption has declined in absolute terms, he said.

And while this is not an energy transition on the German model, it could the “be the beginning of an ambitious turnaround,” Li said, calling the next Five-Year Plan, from 2016 to 2020, “absolutely critical.” […] [Source]

Far from “doing nothing”, China will be building the world’s largest renewable energy system over the next 16 years. This is something that China has already started doing – so the targets agreed upon are feasible, if arduous.

[…] Mitch McConnell and many other commentators have placed all their emphasis on China’s building of a “black” energy system, comprising new coal and other fossil fuel facilities, while ignoring the enormous commitments already made to renewables and a complementary green energy system.

By our reckoning, the leading edge of change in China’s energy system is already more green than black, and the total system is greening at such a rate that the goals just announced as part of the climate deal should certainly be met.

[…] So far from “doing nothing” over the next 16 years, China is transforming its economy and energy system so that water, wind and solar power will be its driving forces. Other countries – not least close US allies such as Australia and Canada – would be wise to pay attention. [Source]

The argument here is that the emissions cuts will not be enough to limit the global mean surface temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, the benchmark beyond which climate change will be “dangerous,” according to the nonbinding international agreement reached in Copenhagen in 2009. The new U.S.-China agreement alone is indeed very unlikely to keep future warming below 2C.

[…] But we have to take success where we can get it. After decades of failed climate talks — in which the U.S. was often a big part of the reason for failure and China was a big part of our excuse for dragging our feet — this is every bit the political breakthrough it appears to be.

While it’s not enough on its own, the momentum couldn’t be more welcome after so many years of inaction and bad news. […]

[…] The [second] argument here is that Obama had already committed to cuts putting us along the trajectory in the agreement until 2020 (with the EPA regulation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant and the new rules on power plants) and has now just extended the same trajectory to 2025. Similarly, some argue that the Chinese too would be aiming for their targets in the agreement even without it. […] [Source]

The opponents of climate change action had counted on China to give the United States an excuse to do nothing about planetary overheating. Their argument was that it would put a staggering burden on American companies, giving a big advantage to their unconstrained Chinese competitors.

But a couple of underlying assumptions turned out to be faulty. One is that the Chinese put economic growth above everything else. Another is that they are too bent on defying and weakening the U.S. to give in on such a momentous issue.

In reality, the Chinese have come to understand that ever-growing carbon emissions go hand in hand with their deadly air pollution, which causes 670,000 deaths per year—more than the population of Seattle. They also understand that on many issues, cooperation makes more sense than conflict.

[…] The summit illustrated the positive side of this impulse. By embracing international obligations like combating climate change, Beijing makes it harder for Republicans to rationalize despoliation of the planet on behalf of special interests like the U.S. coal industry. It also creates pressure on other major polluters—notably India—to follow suit.

[…] Life and U.S. foreign policy would be simpler if China were as hostile and duplicitous as some Americans assume. But they wouldn’t be easier. [Source]

“This is a heartening development,” Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told Reuters. “This is a good beginning and I hope the global community follows this lead and maybe builds on it.”

He acknowledged that the deal fell far short of a road map toward zero net emissions by 2100 that an IPCC report on Nov. 2 indicated was needed to avert the worst.

The IPCC said unchecked climate change could have “severe, widespread and irreversible impacts” on human society and nature with heatwaves, floods, storms and rising sea levels. [Source]

But the agreement itself is not really climate progress. It’s purely voluntary; the U.S. Senate would never ratify a binding treaty. It’s not overly ambitious; it sets goals for the U.S. (a 26-28% reduction of 2005 emissions levels by 2025) and China (a transition to 20% non-fossil energy by 2030) they might well have achieved anyway. The U.S. goal is paltry compared to that of the European Union, which includes a 40% reduction from 1990 emissions levels by 2030. China isn’t even committing to start reducing emissions for the next sixteen years. And there’s no apparent mechanism to translate any of these modest goals into a transition away from the coal-fired electricity and oil-based transportation that’s broiling the planet.

The good news is that in recent years, without any treaty or agreement, the U.S. and China have both taken real action that has led to real climate progress. In the U.S., Obama poured an astonishing $90 billion into clean energy in his 2009 stimulus bill, then pushed a variety of rules cracking down on coal plants and tightening fuel-efficiency standards. Today, coal-fired power production is already down 20% from 2005 levels, and another 10% of the coal fleet is scheduled for retirement. That’s partly because of the domestic natural gas boom, but U.S. wind production has tripled and solar power has increased more than tenfold during the Obama presidency. Obama has also enacted much stricter fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks; as a result, we’re guzzling significantly less gasoline. [Source]

The U.S.-China announcement, in short, is aspirational. Which is not to say that it is meaningless! Perhaps it is true that (as the document says) that “by announcing these targets now,” China and the United States “can inject momentum into the global climate negotiations and inspire other countries to join in coming forward with ambitious actions as soon as possible, preferably by the first quarter of 2015.” The very perception that China and the United States are not serious about reducing carbon emissions has held back other countries from reducing them, so perhaps the appearance of seriousness about such reductions by these two countries, and the appearance of working together on the issues, might spur others to act. Perhaps, also, future presidents will feel morally bound by the intentions stated here, or perhaps this announcement will change the politics of climate change, domestically or internationally, in a way that future presidents (and other leaders) will find hard to escape. Or perhaps the United States will elect another president as eager as President Obama is to stopping climate change. Perhaps some or all of these things will happen. My only point is that the climate change “announcement” has been hyped. [Source]

So why isn’t Beijing celebrating and advertising its new willingness to do something for the greater good? Deborah Seligsohn, an expert on the Chinese environment at the University of California San Diego, told FPthat Chinese leaders “tend not to enthuse,” so that may in part explain Xi’s reserve. But she also said that Beijing is under fire domestically for its unsuccessful efforts to curb local air pollution, noting that people were furious that authorities managed to clear the air for the visiting APEC dignitaries but can’t do it on a daily basis for their own citizens. There may be worries that focusing on climate change rather than air pollution doesn’t meet the public’s main concerns,” Seligsohn said via email.

And indeed, on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, there were grumblings over the joint statement, with one commentator in eastern China’s Zhejiang province wondering why Beijing was signing an accord with the United States on climate when those who are suffering the most due to China’s emissions are the Chinese people themselves. “Whomever can commit to capping emissions now and starting to reduce from here, they can have the support of the Chinese people.” [Source]

Noting that this is the first time both countries have reached an agreement on a world issue, the Chinese edition of the Global Times praises the “existence of a China-US joint leadership”.

However, the papers subtly hints that China will not make any dramatic cuts despite pressures from the US and Europe.

“It is the basic right of the people to pursue a moderately comfortable life and improve their living standards. We need to balance many factors and move on step by step,” it says.

Echoing similar views, a commentary in the Beijing Times welcomes the “shared responsibility” of tackling emissions but also reminds readers of the “differences” that still exist between the two countries.

It says that the US and other industrialised countries need to shoulder more responsibility because their longer-term actions have had an impact on the environment. [Source]

Still, the announcement may also indicate an understanding not only of the risks of inaction, but also of the opportunities of moving towards low-carbon development. These include greater efficiency and lower costs, and the opportunity to benefit strategically and economically from innovation in low-carbon technologies.

[…] China may also see persuasive economic arguments for cleaner growth. Today China not only leads the world in renewable energy investment, but also sees innovation that’s driven by demand. For example, “disruptive” technology is being developed in the form of electric bicycles (more efficient and environmentally friendly than cars) and the world’s largest installation of solar water heaters.

Perhaps then, we are seeing a turning point that, in the words of the World Resources Institute’s Jennifer Morgan, can spur a new “race to the top” as the world approaches UN climate talks in Paris and both China and the US get serious about tackling their emissions. [Source]

Many scientists have said that 2030 may be too long to wait for China’s greenhouse gas emissions to stop growing, if the world is to keep the average global temperature from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above the preindustrial average. That goal was adopted by governments from around the world at talks in Copenhagen in 2009.

[…] Some experts said that China should try to halt the growth of its emissions much sooner than it has pledged, by 2025 rather than 2030.

“Based on China’s current coal consumption numbers, they can do much more,” Mr. Li [Shuo of Greenpeace East Asia] said on Wednesday. He said of the pledges made on Wednesday that “this should be the floor on which they work, rather than a ceiling.”

[…] Internally, Chinese scientists and officials have been crunching data to try to pinpoint when carbon emissions will peak and how high that peak will be, given current economic growth projections and energy policies, but their estimates have varied. Foreign scientists and policy makers are also trying to judge whether Mr. Xi’s 2030 pledge represents a genuine campaign by the Chinese government to fight climate change, or just a business-as-usual date when emissions would probably have leveled off anyway. [Source]

[…] Beijing has recently shown it is serious about cleaning up its emissions by strengthening environmental laws, toughening regulations, and stepping up oversight of factories and power plants. The tough new stance comes as choking pollution in cities like Beijing and rising health problems have led to widespread public outrage. Some sort of carbon cap from China has been anticipated for months. [Source]

Republicans in the US Congress reacted strongly against the deal on Wednesday. The party already held a majority in the House of Representatives, and the midterm elections last week also delivered them control of the Senate, where the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said Obama would not be in the White House long enough to see the plan through.

[…] In his first meeting with the incoming Republican majority, McConnell, who represents the coal state of Kentucky, said he was “distressed” at the deal, adding that the diplomatic breakthrough would have no effect on his disdain for international climate negotiations.

[…] The Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, also attacked the deal, and suggested he would move legislation to further limit Obama’s ability to deliver the carbon pollution cuts he promised.

[…] Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican and climate denier who is poised to take over the Senate environment and public works committee in January, said China’s end of the bargain was just a ploy to buy time. [Source]

Here you go. My video supercut of Republicans who have used China as an excuse for climate inaction: http://t.co/HBz9HDldGD

The U.S. target looks like it’s going to be really tough to meet without new laws.The United States promised to cut emissions 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 and to try to get to a 28 percent cut. (Notice a pattern – baseline and stretch goals – between the United States and China?) If the United States hits its current target – 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 – on the head, it will need to cut emissions by 2.3-2.8 percent annually between 2020 and 2025, a much faster pace than what’s being targeted through 2020. That is a mighty demanding goal. It will be particularly challenging to meet using existing legal authority – which the administration says can be done.

My understanding is that the numbers were arrived at through careful bottom-up analysis of the U.S. economy and of legal authorities over an extended period of time. But technically possible and politically likely are two different standards. […] [Source]

While the announcement caused unsurprising partisan turbulence in Washington, commentators on both sides of the Pacific see in it positive prospects for international climate diplomacy. ChinaDialogue has published China’s National Center for Climate Change deputy director Zou Ji’s analysis:

First, its political importance is no small matter. It has taken into account political realities and possibilities and is acceptable to both parties. Given that, solutions can be sought for all practical issues that subsequently arise.

Second, the US is the world’s largest developed country, and the biggest emitter among those countries. China is the biggest developing emitter. This China-US agreement sets a good example to both developed and developing countries and sets the tone for the 2015 Paris talks. If China-US cooperation boosts multilateral global governance and ensures widespread participation and joint action, it will have a wide-reaching impact on the global low-carbon transition.

Third, the joint statement will invigorate bilateral relations. It points the way to the creation of new economic and trade growth and a new round of prosperity. It’s not just that China and the US need to tackle climate change jointly, China’s restructuring cannot happen without the US, and US restructuring and low-carbon transition cannot happen without China. The two parties need to make their own transitions, and in doing so promote global economic change.

Fourth, when compared with the earlier China-US climate-change consensus, the joint statement opens new fields up to cooperation. […] [Source]

[…] There is no question that all of us will need to do more to push toward the de-carbonization of the global economy. But in climate diplomacy, as in life, you have to start at the beginning, and this breakthrough marks a fresh beginning. Two countries regarded for 20 years as the leaders of opposing camps in climate negotiations – have come together to find common ground, determined to make lasting progress on an unprecedented global challenge. Let’s ensure that this is the first step toward a world that is more prosperous and more secure. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/11/u-s-china-climate-announcement-draws-criticism-praise/feed/0Joint U.S.-China Agreement on Climate Change a “Game-Changer”http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/11/joint-u-s-china-agreement-climate-change-game-changer/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/11/joint-u-s-china-agreement-climate-change-game-changer/#commentsWed, 12 Nov 2014 07:41:27 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=179009Just before hosting a joint press conference following APEC meetings in Beijing, Xi Jinping and Barack Obama made a surprise announcement of an ambitious bilateral agreement on climate change. The agreement had been reached after nine months of private negotiations and calls on both countries to dramatically reduce carbon emissions in coming years. Specifically, according to the agreement:

The United States intends to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its emissions by 26%-28% below its 2005 level in 2025 and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28%. China intends to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030 and to make best efforts to peak early and intends to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20% by 2030. Both sides intend to continue to work to increase ambition over time. [Source]

The landmark agreement, jointly announced here by President Obama and President Xi Jinping, includes new targets for carbon emissions reductions by the United States and a first-ever commitment by China to stop its emissions from growing by 2030.

Administration officials said the agreement, which was worked out quietly between the United States and China over nine months and included a letter from Mr. Obama to Mr. Xi proposing a joint approach, could galvanize efforts to negotiate a new global climate agreement by 2015.

[…] A climate deal between China and the United States, the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 carbon polluters, is viewed as essential to concluding a new global accord. Unless Beijing and Washington can resolve their differences, climate experts say, few other countries will agree to mandatory cuts in emissions, and any meaningful worldwide pact will be likely to founder. [Source]

This is the first time such a policy has come from the very top, President Xi Jinping. Previously, the first and only mention of “peaking” came from Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli at the UN climate talks in New York in September.

“This is clearly a sign of the seriousness and the importance the Chinese government is giving to this issue,” said Barbara Finamore, Asia director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the environmental advocacy group, in an interview from Hong Kong. “The relationship [between the US and China] is tricky, but climate has been one of the areas where the two sides can and are finding common ground.”

Before we have all the details, here is the simple guide to why this could be very important.

1) To have spent any time in China is to recognize that environmental damage of all kinds is the greatest threat to its sustainability. Even more than the political corruption and repression to which its pollution problems are related. […]

You can go on for quite a while with a political system like China’s, as it keeps demonstrating now in its 65th year. But when children are developing lung cancer, when people in the capital city are on average dying five years too early because of air pollution, when water and agricultural soil and food supplies are increasingly poisoned, a system just won’t last. The Chinese Communist Party itself has recognized this, in shifting in the past three years from pollution-denialism to a “we’re on your side to clean things up!” official stance.

Analytically these pollution emergencies are distinct from carbon-emission issues. But in practical terms pro-environmental steps by China are likely to help with both. [Source]

The Chinese targets also represent a major advance. For the first time China is announcing a peak year for its carbon emissions – around 2030 – along with a commitment to try to reach the peak earlier. That matters because over the past 15 years, China has accounted for roughly 60 percent of the growth in carbon dioxide emissions world-wide. We are confident that China can and will reach peak emissions before 2030, in light of President Xi’s commitments to restructure the economy, dramatically reduce air pollution and stimulate an energy revolution.

China is also announcing today that it would expand the share of total energy consumption coming from zero-emission sources (renewable and nuclear energy) to around 20 percent by 2030, sending a powerful signal to investors and energy markets around the world and helping accelerate the global transition to clean-energy economies. To meet its goal, China will need to deploy an additional 800 to 1,000 gigawatts of nuclear, wind, solar and other renewable generation capacity by 2030 – an enormous amount, about the same as all the coal-fired power plants in China today, and nearly as much as the total electricity generation capacity of the United States. [Source]

Responses on Twitter were swift and generally cautiously optimistic:

Just in from China: President Obama and President Xi Jinping making joint announcement for historic cuts in climate pollution. Game-changer.

A report released ahead of Tuesday’s UN climate summit, which shows China’s per capita carbon emissions have surpassed those of the European Union, does not tell the whole story, an expert said.

“China and the EU cannot be compared in such a simple way, given their different stages of development and economic situations,” said Zou Ji, a professor at the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation.

According to the Global Carbon Project report, China’s carbon dioxide emissions of 7.2 metric tons per capita for the first time surpassed the EU’s 6.8 tons in 2013.

However, the EU, since the industrial revolution, has produced more cumulative emissions per capita than China, Zou said.

About 70 percent of cumulative emissions since the industrial revolution were emitted from developed countries, which are believed to be the reason behind today’s global climate change, according to the latest assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [Source]

But is China still a “developing” country? China’s top leaders certainly think so, or at least they say so publicly. In many, if not all of his meetings with foreign leaders, Xi, like his predecessor Hu Jintao, reminds them that China is a developing country, and thus must behave accordingly — but it’s unclear what exactly that means. (China’s U.N. mission didn’t reply to requests for comment; a Chinese embassy spokesman pointed me to the Chinese Foreign Ministry website.)

[…] In November 2010, I wrote an article (with my then Newsweek colleague Rana Foroohar) on how China was too rich to lean on its developing country status, citing the excess manifest in its luxury boutiques, its BMWs, and its billionaires. Four years later, and despite Xi’s corruption crackdown, major cities feel even wealthier now, thought much of the hinterland remains poor. “China is a dualistic economy, with very affluent cities and coastal regions but also some very poor regions that by any standard would be classified as ‘developing areas,'” said Susan Shirk, the chair of the 21st Century China Program at the University of California, San Diego.

Then, as now, the Chinese response has been to claim that domestic poverty eradication is their paramount responsibility. […]

[…] Yes, China contains multitudes. But practically and internationally, the concept of China as a developing country is stale and inaccurate. In 1974, Deng Xiaoping (who would later that decade become China’s paramount leader) gave a speech at the United Nations. “China is a socialist country,” he reminded his audience, “and a developing country as well.” Today, China’s economy is more than 65 times larger than it was in 1974, according to World Bank statistics. […] [Source]

Chen, who is 72, never planned on being a dumpling mogul. Like almost everyone who came of age during the Cultural Revolution, he didn’t get to choose his profession. He was a “gadget guy” during his high-school years. “I liked building circuits and crystal radios and that sort of thing,” he told me. “I applied to university to study semiconductor electronics.” But the state decided that Chen should become a surgeon, and so he dutifully completed his studies and amused himself in his free time by learning how to cook: He made Sichuan pickles, kung pao chicken and, of course, dumplings. Even after he became vice president of the Second People’s Hospital in Zhengzhou, a provincial city about halfway between Shanghai and Beijing, Chen remained bored with his day job. “I didn’t have enough to keep me busy,” he said, blinking earnestly, hands steepled beneath his chin. “I would wander round inspecting the building, and I had meetings, but I felt as if I spent most of my time reading the newspaper and drinking tea.” He engaged in lots of Rube Goldberg-like tinkering: jury-rigging the hospital’s aging equipment, fixing his neighbors’ radios and even building Zhengzhou’s first washing machine. And he cooked. For decades, his lunar New Year gifts of homemade glutinous rice balls were legendary among friends and neighbors.

[…] Using mechanical parts harvested from the hospital junk pile, Chen built a two-stage freezer that chilled his glutinous rice balls one by one, quickly enough that large ice crystals didn’t form inside the filling and ruin the texture. His first patent covered a production process for the balls themselves; a second was for the packaging that would protect them from freezer burn. Soon enough, Chen realized that both innovations could be applied to pot stickers, too. And so in 1992, against the advice of his entire family, Chen, then 50, quit his hospital job, rented a small former print shop and started China’s first frozen-food business. He named his fledgling dumpling company Sanquan, which is short for the “Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China” — the 1978 gathering that marked the country’s first steps toward the open market. [Source]

Update: At her Edible Geography blog, Twilley expands on the article with a photo- and video-laden tour of “Ten Landmarks of the Chinese Cryosphere,” from factories to warehouses, including the fiercely traditionalist Hangzhou restaurant where the Times piece ends.

The freshest fish I ate in China […] was at a restaurant called Longjing Caoting, in Hangzhou. Dai Jianjun, its chef-owner, serves a “prelapsarian Chinese cuisine,” to borrow Fuchsia Dunlop’s description from her wonderful New Yorker article about the place. Everything I ate had been pickled, dried, preserved in-house, or freshly foraged that day.

Dai’s depth of knowledge about traditional Chinese flavours — he can and did talk for hours about the importance of orientation and bamboo-rod spacing when wind-drying sausages, or the under-appreciated difference between small-leaf and large-leaf pickles — is only matched by his dislike for all things modern. “City food gives me the shits,” he said, before quoting two ancient Chinese philosophers to explain that agriculture had first gone wrong by harnessing oxen to the plough, rather than relying on manpower alone.

[…] As Fuchsia Dunlop puts it, “Dai’s main worry is that traditional farming and cooking won’t survive another generation.” [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/07/frozen-dumpling-global-warming/feed/0China Urged To Limit Carbon Emissions For First Timehttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/06/china-limit-carbon-emissions-first-time/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/06/china-limit-carbon-emissions-first-time/#commentsThu, 05 Jun 2014 00:33:11 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=173607Adam Vaughan and Tania Branigan at The Guardian report the claim, later withdrawn, by a high-level advisor representing China’s Advisory Committee on Climate Change that by the end of the decade, China’s government would limit its total carbon emissions for the first time:

He Jiankun, chairman of China’s Advisory Committee on Climate Change, told a conference in Beijing on Tuesday that an absolute cap on carbon emissions will be introduced.

“The government will use two ways to control CO2 emissions in the next five-year plan, by intensity and an absolute cap,” Reuters reported He as saying. Though not a government official, He is a high level advisor.

However, Jiankun later in the day appear to row back on the comments. “What I said today was my personal view. The opinions expressed at the workshop were only meant for academic studies. What I said does not represent the Chinese government or any organisation,” he told Reuters.

While environmentalists broadly welcomed his initial remarks, they cautioned that it was far from clear at what level the cap would be set and said it needed to be enforceable. [Source]

I consulted with The Times’s Beijng bureau. Christopher Buckley, a reporter [based in Hong Kong] who in 2011 had covered China’s emissions plans [and similar pushes from advisers to adopt a cap] while with Reuters, spoke with He Jiankun, who told him repeatedly that he did not in any way speak for the government, or the full expert climate committee.

Here’s Buckley’s translation:

It’s not the case that the Chinese government has made any decision. This is a suggestion from experts, because now they are exploring how emissions can be controlled in the 13th Five Year Plan…. This is a view of experts; that’s not saying it’s the government’s. I’m not a government official and I don’t represent the government.

[…] Other, more recent news coverage has reflected that this isn’t China’s position, although many experts in Beijing (including at the meeting I’m participating in) foresee an eventual cap and a peak in China’s emissions sometime after 2030. [Source]

What was especially intriguing about his comments at the conference in Beijing, aside from the timing, is that an absolute cap on pollution would be something of a departure for China.

Beijing’s formal environmental goals are designed to make the economy relatively cleaner but allow overall greenhouse gas emissions to keep rising as the economy keeps growing. The latest official targets, for instance, are meant to cut carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 2015, rather than cutting carbon emissions outright. China is struggling to meet even those lower targets. Meeting these potentially more ambitious ones will be even harder. [Source]

Though China is the top carbon polluter in the world, its per capita emissions aren’t actually all that high. At 6.2 metric tons per capita, China is much cleaner than the U.S. on a per person basis. In the U.S., emissions are around 17.6 metric tons per person—2.8 times higher.

How much of an effect China’s proposed plan will have is not clear, as the details have yet to be laid out.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s own plan, released yesterday, would reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30 percent of 2005 emissions levels within the next 16 years. China and America together represent 45 percent of global carbon emissions—with the two powers on board working to freeze or reduce their emissions, we may just yet have a shot of stalling global climate change. [Source]

Forty years of digging for coal have left the miner with tuberculosis and drained his village water supply. But he, like China, clings to the resource as his economic mother lode.

“If I did farming, it would take me a year to get what I make in a month,” said the 55-year-old, surnamed Di and sporting the blackened fingernails of someone who has spent most of his days beneath the hills of China’s poverty-stricken Guizhou province.

His lungs “don’t hurt much”, he said, although in any case he cannot afford treatment.

China too has embraced the economic benefits of coal despite the threats it poses to health and the environment. […] [Source]

This [“war on pollution”] sounds like great news. But it also begs the question, with coal now providing 65% of China’s energy, where’s the cleaner energy that’s going to replace it coming from?

China doesn’t have enough natural gas to meet its energy needs, and its nuclear sector is also relatively small. Clean technologies such as wind and solar are still immature. That’s why a lot of the country’s energy will come from “coal natural gas,” a.k.a. synthetic natural gas or syngas. Created by burning natural gas developed from coal, this form of energy creates a fraction of the pollutants spewed out by coal-fired power plants. But it also emits up to 82% more carbon dioxide and guzzles huge amounts of water.

China emitted 9.9 billion tonnes of CO2 (pdf, p.10) in 2012, a 3.3% increase on the previous year; that increase came largely from coal-fired power plant production. That was an improvement from the 10% annual increase that China had averaged for the last decade or so. But imagine what will happen as China’s coal-fired power plants are swapped out for syngas, emitting 82% more CO2.

In March, when more than 10,000 pig carcasses floated down the Huangpu River, a major water source for Shanghai, the country had surely experienced the most visibly shocking reminder of its ecological crisis. On the lighter side, this inspired netizens to riff darkly on the Ang Lee film Life of Pi, with posters circulating online for a new horror film, Life of Pig. More significantly, the case pointed to the potentially huge environmental and public health impacts posed by the rapid expansion of pig farming in China. With the causes of the pigfestation still murky, the only thing that’s certain that the social debates around these uncertainties aren’t going away anytime soon, with speculation that everything from avian flu to genetically modified corn caused the pig die-off. And as this year’s litany of grim headlines suggests, simply trying to put a lid on these discussions is a losing battle. [Source]

These assertions are largely untrue. Instead, China’s mega-dams block the flow of rivers, increase the chances of earthquakes, destroy precious environments and shatter the lives of millions of people. Rather than benefiting populations with non-polluting power, China’s dam builders are making a Faustian bargain with nature, selling their country’s soul in their drive for economic growth.

[…] Although hydroelectric dams produce considerably fewer carbon emissions than coal-fired power plants, China’s assertions that dams provide clean energy are substantially untrue. The rotting of inundated trees and vegetation in reservoirs emits the greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide and methane, that rise from reservoir surfaces. Whenever water levels drop, rotting vegetation is again exposed and methane emissions increase. Estimates of emissions vary widely, depending on the climate where the dam is built, the amount and type of vegetation flooded, and the depth and age of the reservoir. Over a projected lifetime of a dam in temperate regions, emissions could be from roughly one-third to nearly two-thirds that of a natural gas plant. In warm and densely forested areas, such as China’s southwest, the emissions could be higher, particularly in a plant’s early years of operation. Dam building also includes indirect emissions from development of a dam site, manufacture and transport of materials and equipment, waste disposal, and, eventually, decommissioning. [Source]

“I agree with the conclusion of the report that the ecology along the Yangtze River has deteriorated significantly, but it is as a result of overfishing and water pollution,” Zhang [Boting, a senior engineer from the China Society for Hydropower Engineering] told the Global Times, adding that the hydropower projects benefit the ecosystem as artificial breeding has helped save some endangered species.

[…] But according to Zhao Yimin, director of the Yangtze River fishery resources management committee office, fishes should not be sacrificed for the cause of economic development as knowledge of extinct species could be critical for future research.

[…] Zhao said he opposed the construction of hydropower projects in an “unconstrained and irregular pattern,” as dams change the environment and accelerate extinction of some species. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/11/chinas-dam-boom-faustian-bargain/feed/0China’s Poisoned Air Prompts Woman to Devise Green Taxhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/10/chinas-poisoned-air-prompts-woman-devise-green-tax/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/10/chinas-poisoned-air-prompts-woman-devise-green-tax/#commentsThu, 03 Oct 2013 05:07:20 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=163585Bloomberg profiles Cao Jing, an economics professor at Tsinghua University who is advocating for a carbon tax to reduce emissions in China:

Her work gained a new urgency after a leadership change this year installed President Xi Jinping, who has promised to combat pollution even at the cost of slowing the economy. Cao’s goal is to develop a tax structure that would curb harmful emissions with the least effect on growth and company profits.

“China is in urgent need of climate policies like a carbon tax to save energy and reduce emissions,” said Cao, an associate professor of economics at Tsinghua University and a consultant for the World Bank. “If they are well designed, there will be no big impact on the economy. If they are poorly designed, they may bring disastrous consequences.”

Cao, also a researcher at Tsinghua National Institute of Fiscal Studies funded by the Ministry of Finance, predicts the government initially will adopt a carbon tax. She says this would have a smaller economic impact — and so is more politically acceptable in China — than the cap-and-trade model adopted in the European Union, where companies buy and sell permits to pollute.

[…] If China started with a tax of 10 yuan ($1.63) a ton of carbon dioxide this year and raised it steadily to about 50 yuan by 2020, carbon emissions could fall by as much as 19 percent, while health and energy benefits would mean the effect on economic growth would be almost zero, she said. [Source]